Translating Perry for non-Texans

Many years ago, I read a magazine article describing how the national press covered Texas like it is a foreign country — with little understanding of the state’s politics or politicians. Little has changed in the intervening years.

As someone who’s been involved in Texas politics for 40 years, I want to translate Rick Perry — as a governor and a candidate.

Let’s start with Perry the campaigner. Two years ago, as his primary campaign for reelection against Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison was heating up, The New York Times Sunday Magazine ran a glowing profile of Hutchison as a thoughtful moderate, who had a real chance of defeating Perry — whom the paper portrayed as an out-of-touch hick.

Wrong. I remember telling friends that when Perry finished with Hutchison, there would be nothing left but a bomb crater. He ran a tough campaign against her, labeling her part of the Washington establishment and beating her handily. He then won reelection by a significant margin against a well-funded Democrat, former Houston Mayor Bill White.

He is, however, untested on the national stage. The Texas media tends to be docile, and has rarely challenged Perry during his 10 years as governor — though he has said and done some outrageous things.

There will likely be a honeymoon stage with the national media when he enters the presidential race, but Perry will soon face intense scrutiny.

Perry demonstrated that he may not be ready for prime time with how he handled the gay marriage issue. First, Perry said that he didn’t have any problem with states like New York approving gay marriage — though he didn’t think it was appropriate for Texas. It was a state’s rights issue.

However, after getting strong pushback from the religious right community, Perry changed his position, saying he was in favor of a constitutional amendment banning gay marriage everywhere.